Are You the Leader Everyone Fears?

When people stop thinking around you, when they defer every decision, when they wait for you to solve everything, they’re not being lazy.

They’re responding to something they sense: that questioning you, challenging you, or thinking differently than you feels risky.

You’ve accidentally created what I call authoritarian dynamics. And before you dismiss that term, hear me out.

Authoritarian dynamics are at work not just in the halls of government; they are everywhere: in small offices, at family dinners, in the unspoken rules of team meetings. They are at work in the partner who controls every detail of how household tasks get done, in the person who treats restaurant servers like servants.

You don’t need a palace to be authoritarian. All you need is fear, and fear is cheap and universal.

There is a fine line. Healthy leadership sets expectations, provides guidance, and fosters self-motivation. Authoritarian leadership demands compliance, punishes questions, and discourages independent initiative.

The fear that’s at the core of authoritarianism is not just the fear instilled in people, but the authoritarian’s own fear.

I say this because I have been both the stone and the wound. I have been the guy who shut people down to feel safe. I have been the one who thought control equals strength, hiding my own fear behind a façade.

I learned the hard way that the same armor that keeps us standing upright also keeps us rigid, separated, and alone. It’s exhausting to cover our heart just to prove that we are not weak because that puts us in the very situation we fear: isolated, solitary, and disconnected from the people we want beside us.

That hurts.

And when it hurts, we often revert to our primal instincts: we strike back. With intensity, with force. We raise our voice, tighten our grip, shutting down the conversation.

You tell yourself this is strength, leadership.

But I know you. I know you because I have been you.

Look around. Look at the faces of those you lead.

Do they lean in when you speak, or do they step back? Do they bring you their best ideas, or do they tell you what they think you want to hear? Do they challenge you to become the best you can, or do they simply comply?

Maybe a deeper question: are you even aware of these behaviors? Or have you locked yourself into a castle so high that you can’t even see them?

Have you - the one who was supposed to lead and inspire - become the bottleneck, the limitation, the ceiling to everyone’s potential? To your own potential?

This isn’t who you are. This is who you became when you forgot who you were.

There comes a moment in every leader’s journey when you realize you have a choice. Perhaps this moment is right now, as you read these words.

You can continue digging. Or you can do what every truly great leader in history has done: You can choose to be human.

I’m not asking you to become weak. I’m asking you to become strong enough to be seen.

Strong enough to say, “I don’t have all the answers.” Strong enough to ask, “What do you think?” Strong enough to admit, “I was wrong.” Strong enough to trust that your worth isn’t measured by your control, but by your courage to let go.

This is the leadership the world needs now. Not the kind that demands submission, but the kind that inspires elevation. Not the kind that rules through fear, but the kind that leads through faith.

Here’s how to start:

• Stop pushing as your first move. When you catch yourself preparing the rebuttal instead of listening, pause. Ask, not to confess, but to learn.

• Name the fear. YOUR fear. I’ve seen it over and over, and it’s in my research: that urge to control stems from the same small place we all know: the fear of being irrelevant, unseen, or abandoned. When you name it, it loses power.

• Practice presence. Presence calms teams more than perfection ever will. Show up steady when things wobble. People will follow you because they trust you, not because they fear you.

If you’re reading this and feel something like a twitch, a defensiveness rising, a voice rehearsing the reasons this does not apply to you, stay with that twitch. That is exactly where the work begins.

This is urgent because patterns start compounding quickly. Small acts of shutting others down become habits. Habits become cultures. Cultures become systems that hurt people and erode trust. And those systems, left unchecked, become the very authoritarianism we see rising around us.

If you care about the work you do and the people who do it with you, if you care about the kind of culture you’re creating, then this inner work is not optional.

The choice is yours, leader. What kind of legacy do you want to leave? The armor of control, or the courage of connection?

Roberto

P.S. If these words stirred something in you, if you felt the weight of recognition or the pull of possibility, then the transformation has already begun. The question isn’t whether you’re ready to change, but whether you’re prepared to choose it.

P.P.S. If this resonated, consider sharing it with someone who might benefit. Sometimes the most important conversations start with someone else’s words.

When you’re ready to go deeper, here are your next steps:

1. Start with a self-assessment → Take the questionnaire: 18 questions to see where you land on the “brilliant but difficult” scale. Free, no name or email required.

2. Get the research → Download my whitepaper “From Control to Connection” - 3 years of data on what actually transforms controlling leaders.

3. Work with me directly → Book a consultation to explore individual coaching for leaders ready to transform their impact.

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